Sunday, 9 August 2009

Singaporean believes that Swine Flu is still milder than Normal Flu

He is using a 3 month figure to compare with a year figure forifnlated Normal Flu deaths taken from 50% of Pneumonia deaths in USA.Confirmed flu deaths was only 257 in 2001.

Worse, now many deaths due to flu like symptoms are attributed topenumonia instead of flu, while their comparison is for 50% ofpneumonia deaths are attributed to normal flu.

These unbalanced comparisons have overlooked the fact that deaths hadincreased from 10 to 1000 in just 3 months. It will be 10,000 by endof August, provided health authorities are honest about their deathfigures instead of categorising them under other underlying diseasesas had happened in Saudi Arabia and even in UK, where a soldier issupposed to have died because of his underlying diseases.

None was mentioned that these people are perfectly normal, i.e. makingup 45% of the total population because not every human being isperfectly healthy. WE all have our underlying medical conditions butthese medical conditions are exaggerated by Swine Flu to a much largerextent than normal flu.

For example, have you ever heard of young pregnant women dying afterexperiencing flu symptoms before this? I never even hear a whisper.

The reasons why US and Australia has a flattening of flu cases is dueto the closure of schools. What is siginifact is that there are silldeaths occurring despite the closure of schools. Just imagine if theseschools remain open and everybody behave as though Swine Flu is mildertha normal flu.

Worst of first H1N1 wave in S'pore could be overBy Alicia Wong, TODAY | Posted: 08 August 2009 0715 hrs

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Clinic in Singapore

Special Report• Flu Outbreak

SINGAPORE: Singapore may be past the worst of its first H1N1 wave.

According to head of the Communicable Diseases Centre at Tan Tock SengHospital (TTSH), Dr Leo Yee Sin, it appears "to be (on) a downwardtrend".

This seems to reaffirm Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan's outlook in lateJuly that H1N1 infections here would peak over the subsequent twoweeks before starting to decline.

But Dr Leo added: "I think we need to wait one or two more weeks forthings to become clearer."

Speaking on Friday at the 43rd Singapore-Malaysia Congress ofMedicine, she pointed out that Singapore's experience with H1N1 hasbeen the "mirror image" of the experience of the United States.

That being so, the good news is this virus could, in fact, be "amilder one" than the seasonal flu bug. There are fewer H1N1- relateddeaths in the US, than deaths from the normal flu.

At TTSH, while there was an increase in patients with pneumoniaadmitted during the earlier surge in H1N1 cases, there was no increasein pneumonia deaths due specifically to H1N1, said Dr Leo.

Still, she cautioned: "We're possibly still in the middle of the H1N1pandemic. There is a lot to learn and watch closely."

On influenza in general, speakers at the congress touched on thedisease's impact on, among other things, the economy and employers.And in Dr Leo's view, flu "treatments and vaccines are grosslyunderutilised in our population".

When TTSH started testing patients with flu-like illnesses — beforeSingapore had its first H1N1 case — only six per cent had a history offlu vaccinations.

She also called for more structured programmes to monitor and manageflu. "With our biomedical research capability, we can be a leadingcentre for influenza research in the tropics."